Arms Warrior DPS Guide — The War Within Pre-Patch

Arms Warrior Rage economy has been significantly altered in The War Within, reducing the amount generated per swing and reducing the Rage cost of Slam, Whirlwind, Rend, Thunder Clap, and Ignore Pain to a consistent 20 Rage. As a result, Rage is generated and spent in smaller chunks, leading to smoother pacing and less time bouncing between a full or empty resource bar.

The Warrior Class Tree has received a moderate rework, rearranging the pathing of several talents and removing some of the less desirable ones outright. Overall, the tree has become smaller and more streamlined, with focus on improving access to important crowd control and early leveling abilities, most notably relocating Shockwave to the middle of the tree. Below, you can see some of the most important changes that will affect your gameplay, decision-making, and power in The War Within.

• Berserker Rage is no longer a talent and now automatically learned at level 12.
• Titanic Throw, Sonic Boom, and Furious Blows have been removed. Furious Blows is one less required damage talent, while the other two were never used.
• Blood and Thunder is now baked into Thunder Clap and has been removed.
• Second Wind now restores 1-2% health per second while below 35% health, in addition to its previous effects. This gives it a guaranteed benefit in high damage/low life situations, without changing the previous functionality.
• Impending Victory now restores 20% health, down from 30%.
• Honed Reflexes now reduces the cooldown of most defensive and utility cooldowns by 5%. However minor, this removes another damage talent, while offering an interesting if equally minor defensive benefit.
• Frothing Berserker now refunds 20% Rage for Arms, down from 20%.
• Barbaric Training no longer increases the Rage cost of abilities. Alongside several other adjustments, this is intended to smooth out the rate at which Arms generates and spends its Rage.
• Champion's Spear now generates 10 rage, down from 20.
• Champion's Might now affects targets hit by Spear, instead of the player standing inside it.
• Shockwave and Thunderous Roar no longer generate Rage.
• Thunderous Words has been buffed from 15 to 30%, but only increases the damage targets take from bleeds during its effect, rather than passively increasing it all the time. This makes Thunderous Roar more active and condenses some of its damage into burstier cooldowns.
• Crushing Force now affects Mortal Strike instead of Slam.
• Endurance Training has gained a second point, allowing players to increase their stamina even further. While nice, the new pathing makes the talent very hard to take.
• Warlord's Torment no longer affects Colossus Smash, and the bonus Rage generated during Recklessness is reduced to +25% from +100%. More so than any other change, this dramatically slows down Arms' Rage generation, though the overall speed of its gameplay is unchanged.
• Blademaster's Torment has been redesigned to now trigger Sweeping Strikes whenever Avatar is used, and reduce the cooldown of Cleave by 1.5 seconds for the duration of Avatar. This gives the talent value no matter what combination of other talents are used, though it also removes any single target value.

The Arms Warrior Spec Tree has undergone only minor changes, condensing and reworking a few of its talents, though retaining the same general pathing.

• Cleave now replaces Whirlwind, reducing the number of keybinds in multitarget content. Reaping Swings has been removed, with Cleave's default cooldown reduced to 4.5 seconds instead.
• Fervor of Battle and Collateral Damage now apply to Cleave, as do Seismic Reverberation and Barbaric Training in the class tree. With Cleave replacing Whirlwind in the rotation, this retains all of the same functionality between the two abilities.
• Tide of Blood has been removed and its effects baked into Skullsplitter.
• Storm of Swords now grants Whirlwind a 30% chance to make your next Whirlwind cost 100% less Rage. Intended to help smooth out the Rage economy, this talent is largely unneeded.
• Sudden Death can now stack twice to avoid wasting procs.
• Improved Overpower now grants a second charge of Overpower, instead of coming from Dreadnaught.
• Strength of Arms has been split into two talents, and now shares a choice node with Dreadnaught. This gives players a clear choice between a single target or multitarget damage boost.
• Finishing Blows now generates Rage when Overpower is used against low health targets, previously found within Strength of Arms. Although seemingly a dramatic nerf, the Rage accounts for much greater part of the overall reduced Arms Rage economy.
• Tactician has been reduced to 1% per Rage spent, while Deft Experience has been reduced to an additional 0.5% per point. A total of 2% per point of Rage, this reduces the overall number of Tactician procs, creating a little more room in the rotation for other abilities.
• In For The Kill now lasts the duration of Colossus Smash instead of a strict 10 seconds. This creates additional synergy with Spiteful Serenity and Blunt Instruments, and greatly increases its value compared to Test of Might.
• Valor in Victory now increases Versatility by 2%, instead of 1%.
• Battlelord no longer increases Overpower damage. This makes the talent less universal, creating more room to take other talents in multitarget content.
• Ravager is now a choice alongside Bladestorm, giving players the option between AoE abilities.
• Bladestorm no longer generates Rage, but its damage has been buffed by ~70%, making it much more directly impactful.
• Hurricane has been removed, thereby reducing the number of layered damage buffs.
• Unhinged now prioritizes the primary target and triggers every other time Bladestorm or Ravager deals damage, allowing it to scale with effects that increase the number of hits.
• Dance of Death has been completely redesigned with separate effects for Bladestorm and Ravager. When an enemy dies during Bladestorm, it increases damage dealt by 5% for the remainder of its duration plus 2 seconds, stacking up to three times. When an enemy dies during Ravager, it instead extends the duration by 2 seconds, also stacking up to three times. A somewhat complicated change, the intent is to reward players when an enemy dies during their large AoE cooldown; used creatively, it can allow funneling damage from a short-lived group of adds into a stronger priority/boss target.
• Critical Thinking has been increased to 10% of Execute Rage refunded per point, greatly helping the Execute Rage economy.

Hero talents are a new system coming in The War Within, giving each specialization the choice between two sub-specs which further diversify their playstyle and capabilities. However, as the points for these standalone talent trees are gained while leveling up to level 80, they are not available during The War Within pre-patch and so specific guides covering them will be released once they become available.